So four developers build one product

The UI kit

Colors, type, components and the rules behind them. Everything on this page is live HTML and CSS — inspect it, copy it, or hand it to whoever sets up the component library. It is intentionally small: fewer choices, fewer inconsistencies.

Color

Teal#1FABAA Primary action. One per screen — if everything is teal, nothing is.
Navy#14324f Headers, headings, structure. The steady voice.
Royal#2F5FD0 Links and secondary emphasis. Never a primary button.
Gold#C9A227 Celebration only — pre-qual letter, clear to close.
Success#1f9d55 Accepted, complete, verified.
Attention#e4a24c Needs redoing. Not an error — a nudge.
Stop#c0453f Guardrail blocks and at-risk loans. Rare on purpose.
Muted#6b7a8c Explanatory copy. Most of the reassurance lives here.
Contrast: every text/background pair used in the prototype meets WCAG 2.2 AA. M16 makes an independent accessibility audit a launch item, not a nice-to-have.

Type

question · 19px / 680
About how much is the home?
section title · 13px / 600
Your application
body · 13.5px / 400
Connect your payroll and we’ll fill this in for you.
hint · 11.5px / muted
A ballpark is fine — we can change this later.
legal · 10.5px / muted
Equal Housing Lender. CLEAR Home Loans NMLS #XXXXX.

Rules

System font stack. -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto — it loads instantly and looks native on the device the borrower actually owns.

16px minimum on inputs. Anything smaller makes iOS zoom the page when the field is focused. This is the single most common mobile form bug.

No all-caps body copy and no justified text. Both hurt readability, and one of them looks like a disclosure trying to hide something.

Plain language above legal language. Every disclosure gets a one-line human summary sitting on top of it.

Components

Buttons

Full width on phones, always. One teal primary per screen; gold is reserved for a win.

Choice

$350,000 – $450,000 ✓
$450,000 – $600,000

Tap targets ≥44px. Ranges beat free text — a borrower who has to be precise stops.

Input

•••–••–____

Native keyboards by input type. Mask sensitive values on screen; never log them.

Progress

Section 3 of 8 · saved just now

Always show both the bar and the words. “Saved” is doing as much work as the bar.

Reassurance note

Connecting can qualify your loan for faster verification — fewer documents later.
E-SIGN consent captured before delivery. Every signature is timestamped.

Teal explains a benefit. Sand carries a legal or timing fact.

Guardrail block

⛔ Guardrail triggered — response blocked

Category: rate quote. Converted to escalation. Logged.

Shown in the prototype so the team sees it. In production the borrower sees the warm handoff, not the machine reason.

Voice — how the product talks

“Please provide documentation evidencing your income.”

“Your last 2 paystubs — so the underwriter can confirm your income.”

“Your submission has been received and is pending review.”

“Nothing needed from you today. We’ll text the moment it moves.”

“Error: document rejected.”

“Re-send this one — the last upload was cut off at the bottom.”

The four tests

1

Say why. Every request for something private carries its reason in the same breath.

2

Name the next thing. A borrower should never wonder what happens now or who has the ball.

3

No blame in errors. The document was cut off; the borrower did not fail.

4

A person’s name, not a department. “Christa will call you” beats “a representative will be in touch.”

Spanish is held to the same bar. A translated string that reads like a form defeats the point — M-group items treat Spanish as a launch-tier experience, not a language pack.

Accessibility floor

Target device

A mid-range Android on cellular. That is the definition-of-done device (11.3), not a desktop browser.

Never color alone

Every status carries an icon or a word beside the color. Red and green are the two most common forms of colorblindness.

Screen readers & focus

Real labels, visible focus rings, logical tab order. WCAG 2.2 AA verified independently before launch (M16).